Agree wholeheartedly with this review and view the 830 as a great drive. I have been very impressed with mine thus far, granted the 256gb models. Thanks for the great review, as always!

Click to expand...

According to Samsung, the 256 and 512 variants share all of the same specs(speeds, components) apart from size. I would thus assume that the 256 drives are the same physical drive as the 512 but using flash chips that are half the density.
Regardless, the performance is stunning and it's interesting seeing how the 830 stacked up against other high-performance SSDs. The Corsair Performance Pro and the Vertex 4 were the two comparisons in particular I was happy to see.

Go to slickdeals.net then, they always have amazing deals on SSD's (last I saw these going for $89 for 128 GB).

Personally I'm waiting for Plextor's new M5P to become available, as it's based on the new Marvell 9187 controller and is just so much better than anything else out there right now (extremely low latency, frugal power draw and strong garbage collection).

I still don't know why everyone likes these, they cost so much more than say a OCZ Vertex 4.

Click to expand...

Samsung has great reliability, which is something OCZ isn't known for. Now I have heard better things about the Vertex 4 series than previous series, but I think there's a lot more trust in the 830 series.

Cost wise, we have seen the 830 256gb model as low as $190-200 (128gb for $90), not sure about 512gb), which is a great deal for such a fast and reliable drive.

I've used 2 high end ssds lately, this and Sandisk Extreme: Extreme did give me stability issues (before latest fw), a few BSOD's and like problems, and the 830 never did give me that.

I still don't know why everyone likes these, they cost so much more than say a OCZ Vertex 4.

Click to expand...

Samsung has a really good reputation for reliability. I've used the 128GB and 64GB models of the 830 with no issues at all. That said, while none of the OCZ Vertex 3's i've installed gave me any trouble, a Synapse Cache has let me down pretty badly.

I'd rather spend 10% more on a component that decides on a system's stability and the safety of my data.

What is wrong with the 256MB models? I was thinking of getting two and putting them into RAID 0.

Click to expand...

Absolutely nothing is wrong with the 256gb models. I have 2 and think they are great, been recommending them to everybody. The context of my comment earlier was just saying that I agreed with W1zz's review of the 512gb 100%, but it was based on 256gb model, though the 256 and 512 should be near identical.

I had my 256s in raid 0 and liked it, but I didn't like having to wait longer to boot, post more appropriately. I broke the raid and currently have 1 for OS and programs and 1 for my games. I think it's a great setup.

Got the 128 GB version of this one. And it's worth the money. props for samsung for gettin rid of the sandforce controllers. Made my choice easy. If they didn't i would have bought the crucial m4 ssd2 that has a marvel controller. Anything but sandforce.